They've been pushing this idea for a couple of days now.

The left is ever-eager to advance their fellow Americans past the childishly naive preference for The Truth and into the liberation of Falsehood and Ideologically-Motivated Fantasy. Truths like Tamarlan's radicalization under the influence of a mysterious Islamic convert called Misha.

the years before the Boston Marathon bombings, Tamerlan Tsarnaev fell under the influence of a new friend, a Muslim convert who steered the religiously apathetic young man toward a strict strain of Islam, family members said.

Under the tutelage of a friend known to the Tsarnaev family only as Misha, Tamerlan gave up boxing and stopped studying music, his family said.

He also began believing in a political fantasy indulged in by the left as a Useful Fiction -- 9/11 Trutherism.

He began opposing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He turned to websites and literature claiming that the CIA was behind the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and Jews controlled the world.

"Somehow, he just took his brain," said Tamerlan's uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, who recalled conversations with Tamerlan's worried father about Misha's influence. Efforts over several days by The Associated Press to identify and interview Misha have been unsuccessful.

Well that won't do. That won't do at all. Nor will it due that both brothers were on welfare through 2012.

The suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings killed in a shootout with police received welfare benefits from the state up until last year, when he became ineligible based on family income. Â…

The state says both Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (joh-KHAHR’ tsahr-NEYE’-ehv) — his brother and the other bombing suspect — received welfare benefits as children through their parents while the family lived in Massachusetts.

Another fact that needs to be "contextualized" is that our government was warned about the Tsarnaevs "multiple times" but apparently failed to notice any danger.

Russian authorities contacted the US government with concerns about Tamerlan Tsarnaev not once but “multiple’’ times, including an alert it sent after he was first investigated by FBI agents in Boston, raising new questions about whether the FBI should have paid more attention to the suspected Boston Marathon bomber, US senators briefed on the inves­tigation said Tuesday.

The FBI interviewed Tamarlan in 2011 but apparently found no reason to follow up.

All of these things implicate the left in some fashion -- whether it's politically indulging the conspiracism encouraged by radical Islam and the radical left. Or permitting immigrants to come to the country and then get on the dole, so that their days are cleared of useful work in order to dream up new ways in which their host country is persecuting them, even as he draws a check from his alleged persecutor.

Or a sort of politically correct paralysis that seems to afflict our government, flowing from our numb Head of State down.

So we need to cast about for alternative explanations-- such as the claim that because Tamarlan was a boxer for a relatively short period of time, he must have been deranged by repeated brain trauma syndrome, or CTE.

And since Dzhohkar was not a boxer, it seems to me then that Dzhohkar -- if this "explanation" is to hold water -- must have also contracted CTE not through brain trauma, but virally from his brother, catching it like a bug.

Time Magazine picks up the agitation for this theory from the hard left (the idea has been pushed by lefty conspiracy sites like Think Progress) but doesn't take this theory all the way and declare that, for the theory to explain Dzhohkar, CTE must be transmittable by air like the common cold.

But his sport of choice suggests the possibility of something else too: traumatic brain injury. As the National Football League and other pro sports increasingly reckon with the early dementia, mental health issues, suicides and even criminal behavior of former players, the risk of whatÂ’s known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), is becoming clear. Roughly 4,000 former NFL players and 2,000 of their spouses are currently suing the league, claiming that the perils of head injuries were never explained to them and, indeed, that the players were pushed to get back on the field even when it was clear that they had suffered concussions.

It was inevitable, then that questions would be raised about whether TsarnaevÂ’s brain may have been similarly traumatized during the years he boxed, and if there had indeed been damage, did that spark his murderous behavior? The answer is a likely yes to the first part and a likely no to the second.

It may seem as if Time is knocking this idea down, but then the author is apparently convinced by Think Progress (or his editor told him to be convinced by Think Progress), because he concludes thus:

While none of this likely would have deterred Tsarnaev, it might be used to diagnose other people at risk of explosive CTE-related violence and stop them before they act out. By treating a single personÂ’s wounded brain, doctors could one day save uncounted other lives.

So there you go. Time Magazine rules Think Progress likely correct (despite its initial skepticism), and we can now establish that Dzhohkar Tsarnaev suffered from what we might call Second-Hand CTE.

Posted by: Ace at 07:36 AM | Comments (367)
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• New York State Troopers Hesitant To Enforce Draconian Gun Laws
  
• Lone Wolf Is The New Focus Post Boston
  
• Shocker: Mosque Boston Bombers Attended Had Radical Ties
  
• Another Dzhokhar Was A Great Guy Story
  
• FBI Investigating Fake Tweet About White House Bombing
  
• Looks Like Massachusetts Taxpayers Helped Fund Tamerlan's Terrorism
  
• Think Progress: Hey Maybe Concussions Played A Role In Tamerlan's Terror Attack
  
• The Memory Of Beslan, The Shame Of Boston
  
• Why Do We Still Fund The UN?
  
• The Pink Police State
  
• WH Knew Fisker Was In Trouble And Gave Them Money Anyway
  
• What Are Conservatives For?
  
• Chris Matthews: What Difference Does It Make Why The Bombers Did It?
  
• Tamerlan Was An Alex Jones/Infowars Fan
  
• Apparently Matt Drudge Is A Big Infowars Fan Too
  
• Justin Green: How Libertarians Misread Reagan And Sidelined The GOP
  
• Florida Law Moves To End Permanent Alimony
  
• Majority Think Fewer Legal Immigrants Should Be Allowed Into The US
  
• UK: A Million On Benefits Are Capable Of Work
  

Purple Monkey Dishwasher.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:22 AM | Comments (413)
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Happy Wednesday.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was on welfare for a while.

Sen. Paul clears up what the careful listeners already knew: he did not change his position on domestic drone use; he's still for it.

Sen. Baucus says he's not running again because "I just donÂ’t want to die with my boots on."

Washington state is the first state to explore putting its employees onto federal health exchanges, thereby shifting costs from Washington taxpayers to federal taxpayers. It won't be the last.

Last month during CPAC, I was sitting with a GOP operative for the Ronald Reagan dinner where Jeb Bush spoke. After the speech the operative remarked, "Alas, if his last name were 'Smith,' he'd be a lock." Jeb's pretty much finding out the same thing.

Gov. Christie is leading his Democratic challenger Barbara Buono by 32 points, down slightly from last month. His approval rating is 67 percent.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:52 AM | Comments (390)
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At least one good thing will happen today.

College athlete cuts short his senior year to be a bone marrow donor and save someone's life. DNA said he was a perfect match, a 1:5,000,000 shot.

No. Hesitation. All may not be lost if we're still producing young people like this. Prayers and fast recovery for the both of you.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 11:07 PM | Comments (46)
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I'm back my pretties. Sorry for the ONT-lessness the last few days - I was on vacation and asked the Cobs to fill-in for me. Promises were made, assurances given and...well we all know what happened.

Kudos to chemjeff for stepping up and walking the ONT wall when it was needed.

Boston Bombers had M-4-style AR-15s

The authorities found an M-4 carbine rifle - a weapon similar to ones used by American forces in Afghanistan - on the boat where the younger suspect was found Friday night in Watertown, Mass., 10 miles west of Boston.

Two handguns and a BB gun that the authorities believe the brothers used in an earlier shootout with officers in Watertown were also recovered, said one official briefed on the investigation. The authorities said they believe the suspects had fired roughly 80 rounds in that shootout, in which Tamerlan Tsarnaev was fatally wounded, the official said.

Yet no license for any of the guns. Clearly a win for universal background checks and strong Massachusetts-style gun control.

Also note that they had no license for these either.

Clearly we must institute common-sense gunpowder control too.

Also check out the wikipedia article on the Mad Bomber of NYC to see that domestic bombing campaigns are sadly not new.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:41 PM | Comments (846)
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The Little Dictator.

You will not be shocked to learn that a terror attack carried out with bombs requires that guns be restricted.

“The people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry,” Mr. Bloomberg said during a press conference in Midtown. “But we live in a complex world where you’re going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change.”

...

“We have to understand that in the world going forward, we’re going to have more cameras and that kind of stuff. That’s good in some sense, but it’s different from what we are used to,” he said.

The mayor pointed to the gun debate and noted the courts have allowed for increasingly stringent regulations in response to ever-more powerful weapons.

“Clearly the Supreme Court has recognized that you have to have different interpretations of the Second Amendment and what it applies to and reasonable gun laws … Here we’re going to to have to live with reasonable levels of security,” he said, pointing to the use of magnetometers to catch weapons in city schools.

I don't mind the cameras in high-traffic, high-crime areas so much. Though I concede the idea of being filmed so much of one's life is pretty creepy.

Every impulse this guy has, though, is towards the aggrandizement of the state and the diminishment of the citizen.

Posted by: Ace at 02:41 PM | Comments (639)
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"Phase 2" is Marvel studio's name for the next series of movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which will include Iron Man 3, Thor 2, Captain America 2, and a Guardians of the Galaxy film (that's some extra-terrestrial superhero team, I believe) film before bringing the gang back together for Avengers 2, which will include the cosmic villain Thantos (or whatever) and probably some of the Guardians of the Galaxy too. Though I imagine they'll be featured players.

Marvel producers talk as if these films will all be linked, somehow, sort of like the last series of movies were. (Actually they were mostly linked by Easter Eggs and post-credit bonus clips, but hey, those still count as links.)

I have to note that Marvel has built a billion dollar franchise with its secondary characters, the ones they didn't sell to other studios. Their real top draws are the X-Men and Spiderman; those properties have been sold. But they're making billions by making solid popcorn movies about second-stringers. Iron Man and Thor are sort of the B+ team, not the real A team, and frankly I wouldn't be able to tell you who the hell the Guardians of the Galaxy are if I hadn't read the Marvel team previewing them. ("They'll be led by Star-Fox!," I'm breathlessly told, as if those words contain any meaning in them.)

Hell, they're even doing Ant-Man for Phase 3. Ant-Man. Whose power is shrinking and communicating with... ants.

Aquaman laughs at Ant-Man. Update: Test footage -- a demonstration clip -- of Ant-Man. In this brief clip, you see him using his power to alternately shrink and then grow back to full size to punch up a couple of extras from The Matrix.

So here's Thor 2, in which Thor teams up with Loki to stop... I don't know, they're called Dark Elves or something. I notice they don't say "Dark Elves" in the trailer. Prudent of them. We have to preserve some sense of dignity. Going to a movie where we're told right up front is about Dark Elves would deny us that figleaf of dignity.

Over at Hot Air, Allah grouses about superhero movies again.

Exit question: Aren't these movies the Star Wars of the twenty-aughts and twenty-teens? It's a fictional universe in which Guardians with Special Powers maintain Peace and Order in the Galaxy. Isn't Captain America just a Jedi with a high-tech shield instead of a high-tech sword?

Isn't Iron Man just Chaotic Good Boba Fett?

Isn't Jarvis just disembodied C3PO?

And isn't the Hulk just Gamma-Wookie?

Discuss.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:51 PM | Comments (266)
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Hillary was "unaware" of things. Gee, she's never attempted that claim before. Hillary's a genius except when it comes to remembering her mistakes and malfeasances, as in Benghazi or Whitewater.

Sheryl Akisson's timeline is putting this out in advance of an article. Here are some of her disclosures:

CBS: Five House Committees (Armed Svcs, Judiciary, Foreign Affairs, Intel, Oversight) released interim report on Benghazi.

Congressional Report: Secy Clinton's testimony to Congress was incorrect when claiming she was unaware of certain Benghazi security requests

Cong Report: Secy Clinton signed an 4/12 State Dept cable acknowledging then-Amb Cretz's formal request for additional security assets

Cong Report: but Clinton ordered the withdrawal of elements to proceed as planned.

Secy Clinton testified in Jan. 2013 "I didn't see those requests. They didn't come to me. I didn't approve them. I didn't deny them."

Cong Report:White House/SState Dept. Officials Altered Talking Points to protect State Dept. from criticism for inadequate security levels.

MORE: Sexton has a much, much fuller report, all of the bullet points and explanatory paragraphs for each.

You have to be some kind of genius to think of the helpful organizational conceit of explaining the scandal in terms of Before, During, and After.

Before the Attacks:

After the U.S.-backed Libyan revolution ended the Gadhafi regime, the U.S. government did not deploy sufficient U.S. security elements to protect U.S. interests and personnel that remained on the ground.

Senior State Department officials knew that the threat environment in Benghazi was high and that the Benghazi compound was vulnerable and unable to withstand an attack, yet the Department continued to systematically withdraw security personnel.

Repeated requests for additional security were denied at the highest levels of the State Department. For example, an April 2012 State Department cable bearing Secretary Hillary ClintonÂ’s signature acknowledged then-Ambassador CretzÂ’s formal request for additional security assets but ordered the withdrawal of security elements to proceed as planned.

...

During the Attacks:

...

Department of Defense officials and military personnel reacted quickly to the attacks in Benghazi. The effectiveness of their response was hindered on account of U.S. military forces not being properly postured to address the growing threats in northern Africa or to respond to a brief, high-intensity attack on U.S. personnel or interests across much of Africa.

After the Attacks:

The Administration willfully perpetuated a deliberately misleading and incomplete narrative that the attacks evolved from a political demonstration caused by a YouTube video. U.S. officials on the ground reported – and video evidence confirms – that demonstrations outside the Benghazi Mission did not occur and that the incident began with an armed attack on the facility. Senior Administration officials knowingly minimized the role played by al-Qa’ida-affiliated entities and other associated groups in the attacks, and decided to exclude from the discussion the previous attempts by extremists to attack U.S. persons or facilities in Libya.

...

Evidence rebuts Administration claims that the talking points were modified to protect classified information or to protect an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Email exchanges during the interagency process do not reveal any concern with protecting classified information. Additionally, the Bureau itself approved a version of the talking points with significantly more information about the attacks and previous threats than the version that the State Department requested. Thus, the claim that the State DepartmentÂ’s edits were made solely to protect that investigation is not credible.

...

The Administration is knocking down this story, I believe, via an underhanded method.

Here's the deal:

Everyone pretty much knows we were running weapons into Syria via our outpost at Benghzi. This is supposedly "a secret," but everyone and his mother's uncle knows it.

The Administration is keeping the media in line, I believe, by feeding them a fiction that they were required to lie about Benghazi to protect this secret.

Except it's not a secret. There is no one in the entire world who doesn't know this secret. And when I say "know," I don't actually know; I am not privvy to NSA documents. So let's say there is not a person in the world who does not strongly suspect that Syrian weapons were being facilitated by Chris Stevens.

And there's nothing wrong with that. One can disagree with that policy, but one cannot say the president doesn't have the power to order covert operations of this type. Certainly all former presidents have.

But what the White House is doing is claiming that they are only misleading, just a touch mind you, hardly a misrepresentation at all, really, in order to protect this secret -- which is no secret at all -- when in fact they are misleading people to keep the real secret, which their own incompetence, bad judgment, malfeasance, and subsequent lying about the same.

That's why you have people like David Gregory grandstanding by demanding that Republicans answer the question "What do you hope to prove?" He's attempting to bait them into saying something about the weapons-smuggling aspect, which Congressmen can't talk about, it being a state secret and all (except it's not a secret), and he's doing that because he's been spun that the Republicans just want to expose this secret (which is not a secret) and embarrass the president and compromise national security for shits and giggles.

No, that's not it all. Everyone knows what was going on in Benghazi and no one is making an issue of that.

I don't care that we were covertly running guns to Syria. I happen to agree with the policy. Even if I did not, I would concede the president has historically had the authority to conduct such covert missions.

That's not the question at all. I don't care about that. I'm completely willing to let the WH keep that secret (even though it's not a secret), and so are Congressional investigators.

But that does not give license to the Administration to keep Hillary Clinton's lethal fuck-up a secret as well.

The issue is: Given that you were running a covert operation out of Benghazi which everyone knew about, shouldn't you have put some goddamned security around your operatives, rather than leaving them to the wolves?

But the Administration will continue to lie to the press, that the only secret here is something unobjectionable (the covert arms mission), and that Republicans are Big Meanies for trying to expose that, in order to keep the press from asking about the real secret, which is the egregious decision-making and lackadaisical attitude towards our diplomats' and covert operators' security.

Everybody Knows, Part II: By the way, here's another thing that Everybody Knows: Everybody Knows that every diplomatic mission and embassy and consulate all over the world is stuffed full of spies.

This is not a secret. Every country smuggles its spies into a target country by disguising them amidst a bunch of genuine diplomats.

Not a secret. Everyone knows this. Everyone knows that our London Embassy does in fact have CIA officers in it. London knows that. And we know the British Embassy in DC has British spies in it.

It is not a secret. It just isn't. There is literally no one who knows anything about espionage who doesn't know this.

I mean, we do try not to talk about it, as we don't want to get Our Spies into trouble, but everyone knows we have spies in our embassies, just as our enemies -- and also, all of our friends -- have spies in theirs. This is how the business works. And Everybody Knows.

This fact does not give any administration a license to lie about all aspects of a bloody, stupid, thick-headed, arrogant deadly failure. Just because you are allowed to lie about one thing (covert operations) does not grant you carte blanche to lie about all things.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:31 PM | Comments (385)
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Please reelect me.

He was against it before he was for it.

Mayor Tom Menino, in an uncharacteristic turn, called for the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

“I have never supported the death penalty but I will say in this one I might think it’s time this individual serves his time with the death penalty,” Menino said.

Posted by: Ace at 12:15 PM | Comments (209)
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I don't know about you, but I was actually pretty surprised by their professionalism under fire and in chaos.

"Professors" don't think so. They think "We" were too bloodthirsty and militaristic.

"We." It means anything you want it to mean.

This said, the mortuary pictures of the older brother of the two are extremely disturbing, raising questions as to whether the Boston Police Department captured him with too much force. I understand the explanation offered by Katharine Q. Seelye, William H. Rashbaum, and Michael Cooper. Yet, it does not ring true. A picture is worth a thousand words that will keep our ears ringing as we recoil from this photo. Images have a way of searing themselves into our memory in a way that canÂ’t be undone. We have an emotional memory, not just a rational one that is exemplified by words.

While terrorism is about causing fear — again an emotion — we do have to account for our conduct in these extreme times when adrenaline is running high.

Apparently this dummy thinks

1) shooting to wound is a real thing, and

2) shooting to wound, if it existed outside old cowboy movies*, is appropriate in the case of a running gun battle with terrorists in which they also, by the way for what it's worth, were throwing grenades and improvised explosives at the cops.

And, by the way, half the guy's wounds were caused by him accidentally detonating one his IED's in throwing it. Apparently it blew up as he threw it. So some of the wounds this idiot takes to be bullet wounds are actually shrapnel punctures from his own bomb.

And of course she thinks that "we" need to be accountable for "our" use of deadly force.

Perfect. The Passive-Aggressive Voice.

* Shooting to wound does exist... if you're a sniper and have all the time in the world to line up your precision shot, without having to worry about counter-fire. It doesn't exist so much in close-quarter gun battles.

Posted by: Ace at 11:44 AM | Comments (346)
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